"Up and at 'em, Desperates, come on, larboard!" he called, rising. "Prime your guns! Point! On the up-roll… fire!"
A ragged cheer arose as the tortured mizzen-mast of the French frigate gave a final shudder and toppled forward, chopped to flinders below the deck by those stern rakes. It fell into component pieces, top-mast dropping straight down as the lower mast fell forward, and the t'gallant and royal masts and spars spiraled about to drape themselves over the main topmast, dragging it sideways in a tangle of rope and canvas.
"Damme, will you look at that!" Alan hooted. "Just bloody beautiful! Keep it up, lads, and we'll have the bastard!"
The aged carpenter came scrambling up from below decks past the parade of powder monkeys, shoving them out of the way in his haste to get to the quarterdeck, and Alan noted that "Chips" was soaking wet from mid-thigh down, which made him suddenly wonder if Desperate would stay afloat long enough to actually "have the bastard," or whether the bastard, damaged as the French frigate was, would end up having them!
The youngest midshipman was back suddenly, tugging on Alan's coat once more, his face streaked with soot and powder stains, the tracks of tears carved into the grime.
"Please, Mister Lewrie, sir, the captain presents his respects, and requests could you spare half a dozen hands to assist the carpenter."
"Hulled and leaking, are we?" Alan asked close, so the hands would not hear.
"Sinking, sir!" The boy quailed, but soft enough for discretion.
"God's balls," Alan breathed. "What next, I wonder? Maple?"
"Aye, sir," the fo'c'sle gunner answered, breaking free of the larboard battery.
"Select five hands who aren't doing us much good at the moment and assist the ship's carpenter, if you would be so kind," Alan directed, trying to remain calm, but it didn't fool Maple, who rolled his eyes in alarm and glanced upward at the cross-deck beams where the boats most definitely weren't any longer. Other than flotsam from a wreck, the boats were the only life-saving devices available.
"Oh, shit, Mister Lewrie, sir!" Maple sighed, dashing off.
If I'd stayed in London, I'd have become a wealthy pimp by now, Alan speculated sourly. I can't even bloody swim!
There was a volley of musketry of such volume and intensity that only a company of infantry could have made it. A larboard waister came tumbling down from the forebraces to sprawl across the breech of a gun, his face shot away and his brains oozing and sizzling on the hot metal.
Alan ducked to look out a gunport once more. Capricieuse was close-aboard, not fifty yards off, her bulwarks lined with men as though her last chance was to board Desperate and take her in a hot hand-to-hand action.
"Quoins out!" Alan yelled to his gunners. "Load grape and canister atop ball! Cease fire and stand by for a broadside!"
"Double-shotted, zurr!" a gun-captain called back.
"Worm 'em out of there and reduce your powder charges! I'll not have another burst barrel!"
"Got grape, but no canister!" another shouted.
"Fuck it! Shoot out your loads!" Alan thundered, at the same time grabbing the nearest powder monkey on his way below with an empty leather cylinder. "Tell Mister Tulley in the magazine I need grape and canister and reduced charges. I'm going to triple-shot the guns!"
That brought Tulley up from below in a rush, his ginger hair sticking up in all directions and his sun-burned complexion glowing at the danger to his precious artillery.
"Damme, sir, you'll burst my barrels! Where's the master gunner? I'll see him and…"
"He's dead and gone, Mister Tulley," Alan said brutally. "Now we have a Frog frigate at pistol-shot and I want round-shot, grape and canister with reduced charges or we're boarded and taken. So what are you going to do to help me?"
"Excess loaders from the starboard battery, fetch canister!" the burly gunner's mate said, his face paling with shock at hearing of his senior's demise, and the straits they were in. "Boys, tell the Yeoman of the Powder Room to issue reduced charges! My God, Mister Lewrie, my merciful God!"
The sound of cannon fire had ceased. Either the French had stripped their gun deck of men for a boarding party, or they were also loading a massive broadside and were waiting for the proper time to fire it into Desperate to shatter resistance just before they came surging over the rails.
"Let's go, let's go!" Alan prodded as the case-shot and grape bags came up, along with the half-size saluting charges. With so much iron-mongery crammed into the muzzles, a larger powder measure would truly burst the barrels, and at such close range, a smaller amount of powder would be preferable anyway. Low velocity shot did not shoot through scantlings clean, but bulged and ravaged them, producing more splinters that ripped men apart, creating more havoc.
The midshipman was back, this time not so polite.
"The captain wants to know what the deuce you're playing at. Mister Lewrie, sir?" the boy wailed. "They are close aboard and Mister Railsford demands you fire into them before they grapple to us!"
"Triple-shotted broadside, go tell them!" Alan growled, pacing past the boy as if he wasn't there. "Go, get aft, you minnikin!"
"Charge yer guns… shot yer guns, round-shot, then grape, then case-shot…" Tulley was directing with the voice of a bawling steer, his face its usual red flush once more.
"Mister Lewrie!" the second young midshipman yelled, dashing to his side.
"Holy hell, will you stop pestering me?"
"Mister Railsford orders you prepare to repel boarders!"
"Run out!" Tulley screeched, and the hands tailed on the tackles to draw their pieces across the deck with the rumble of a cattle stampede as the small wooden wheels of the trucks squealed and drummed.
"Gun-captains to remain, tackle-men and loaders take arms and prepare to repel boarders!" Alan cried. "Tulley, give 'em the broadside and then bring your hands to join me. Let's go, men!"
"Prick yer cartridges… prime yer guns…" Tulley droned on, as the excess hands dug into the weapons tubs for cutlasses and boarding axes, stripped the pikes from the beckets around the bases of the masts, and flung open the arms chests for heavy (and usually inaccurate) pistols. Once more Alan was at a disadvantage, for he did not have any of his pistols with him. He took a tomahawk-sized boarding axe for his off-hand and stuck it into his breeches, unwilling to try his luck with a Sea Pattern pistol again.
"Up to the gangway, quickly now!"
"Take yer aim… stand by…" Tulley called as they scrambled up to the larboard bulwark behind the Marines, who were still volleying into the foe. Sedge dashed past him on his way forward to join the youthful Burney to protect the fo'c'sle. Alan looked back to see Railsford bringing all the afterguard and mizzen mast crew to the break of the quarterdeck to defend the after portion of the ship. Musket bayonets glinted dully from those hands who had gotten a chance to break out the long-arms. Pike heads bristled like medieval infantry ranks, and cutlasses fanned the air as men loosened their arms for the bloody work to come. The French lined their own rails, striped-jerseyed sailors and men in check shirts much like British seamen, naval infantry in blue coats with red facings, with here and there an officer in blue coat edged with gold oak-leaf lace and epaulettes, with red waist-coats.
"Fire!" Tulley finally shouted, and everyone ducked below the bulwarks and nettings as the guns erupted so loudly, avoiding the rush of hot gases and the clouds of smoke, and the whining, ricocheting bits of grape-shot and canisters of musket balls as each piece was turned into a scatter-gun.